Editor,
Presidential candidate Robert McGrath provided an unacceptable answer to the ethical question asked by a faculty member on Friday: Is it appropriate for UNM to participate in defense research? McGrath's response, according to the Daily Lobo, was that since this research is happening anyway "... isn't it better if we're involved with it somehow?" McGrath, who spent much of his career at Sandia National Laboratories, dodged the moral issue completely. Essentially, he is saying that since the other guys are helping develop weapons of mass destruction, UNM might as well get a piece of the action, too. Is this the kind of president UNM wants - one who takes an unprincipled stand on such a serious issue?
McGrath went on to suggest that faculty members should be hired jointly by the national laboratories so they can do high-level research and save the University money. McGrath did not explain how it would further the mission of UNM to have publicly salaried faculty members spending their time working on research to develop weapons of mass murder at Los Alamos and Sandia laboratories. How will that improve UNM's graduation rate?
Ironically, the same issue of the Lobo included an article on the selection of Harvard's new president, Drew Gilpin Faust. Faust is a renowned academic scholar who also has the requisite
vision and leadership skills to head a great university. UNM students and faculty should insist that their new president be chosen for similar attributes rather than simply being a researcher with an insider connection to military industrial dollars.
The UNM mission should be to prepare the next generation of New Mexicans to lead and advance our society by tackling issues such as social injustice, peaceful approaches to international conflict, improved health and even global warming. It is not the University's mission to train its students to be the next generation of weapons manufacturers in an unstable, "Dr. Strangelove" type of world.
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Bruce G. Trigg
UNM faculty
